Periods No Longer Full Stops For Girls in Malawi

By Czarina Nafarrate, Program & Content Coordinator

Meet Trinitas, founder of Tina Pads in Malawi.

Thanks to your donations, GreaterGood.org was able to grant her seed funding to start a menstrual hygiene business last year. Now, Trinitas is on her way to distribute 17,000 reusable pads to girls in Malawi!

Trinitas’ sanitary pads not only improve hygiene, but they also address the 2 million girls in Malawi who miss 3-4 school days PER MONTH simply because of menstruation. Menstrual products (disposable pads and cups) are too expensive for most families who live on less than $1 per day. Simply put, disposable sanitary pads cannot be a priority in such a small family budget. This inadequate access to sanitary pads leads to poor grades and low completion rates, setting young women up for a lifetime of financial struggle. Our study showed that girls from poor families who started their menstrual periods stop going to school during their cycles. They fear using traditional folded pieces of cloth, nyanda or mithethe, because they become soaked within a few hours and the period blood leaks through to their uniforms, exposing the girls to ridicule and embarrassment. This situation forces girls to stay home for all of their heavy period days.

Thanks to Tina Pads, thousands of girls can now confidently go to school, period or not.